Parents and church leaders in Worcester, Massachusetts, joined with Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI) to defeat a Planned Parenthood-implemented sex-ed curriculum in public schools.
In a column at the Daily Signal, Michael King, MFI director of community alliances, referred to the joint efforts of his organization, parents, and church leaders as a “sex ed showdown” with Planned Parenthood and its supporters.
He told Breitbart News in a phone interview that the Worcester school board committee ultimately voted down the curriculum because of the outreach of both parents and church leaders who outnumbered supporters of Planned Parenthood.
King explained MFI has reached out to about 125 different churches across the state throughout the past three years.
He testified before the school board committee after reviewing the “Making Proud Choices” sex-ed curriculum materials, asserting that “abstinence” has been “redefined” in one of the program’s workshops to include:
French-kissing; anal sex; fingering a partner’s genitals; mutual masturbation; dry humping; sharing fantasies … phone sex … grinding … sex with clothes on; rubbing bodies with clothes on; masturbating a partner; hand job … mouth-penis contact; touching a partner’s nipples … mouth-anus contact … striptease and caressing a partner’s scrotum and testicles.
“The only reason I read that is because that is how we are defining abstinence today,” King continued in his testimony. “And I think a lot of people in this room would have a different definition of abstinence.”
Making a reference to the common criticism by Planned Parenthood and its allies that studies show abstinence education does not work with teens, King said, “If studies show that abstinence doesn’t work, maybe it’s because they’ve redefined it and they’re not really looking at the real definition.”
“So, I want you to think about that, and think about what are we teaching our kids, that we are over-sexualizing our kids, and is this really age-appropriate?” he asserted.
Planned Parenthood says about the curriculum:
Making Proud Choices is an 8-module sex education curriculum developed for middle and high school aged youth that has been proven effective. The goal of the program is to reduce sexual risk taking behaviors emphasizing the use of condoms and empowering teens to make their own decisions about how they can be sexually healthy.
King told Breitbart News the decision by the school board committee to shelve Making Proud Choices was “a huge victory.”
“We had about 75 people, many from the Hispanic community,” he said, who joined with his organization.
Mary Ellen Siegler, MFI consultant on comprehensive sex education, told Breitbart News the fact that many parents are not aware of what is being taught in their children’s schools is “alarming.”
She said parents have shown her emails of responses by school officials to requests for details about the proposed sex-ed program, but those responses are often cursory or evasive.
“They’re being sent back this information that, honestly, if you are not educated on the issues or haven’t done the deep research, it looks like what they’re being presented is totally fine,” Siegler explained.
King said MFI is working in other towns and cities across the Bay State “to encourage parents to go to their school principal, or whoever teaches sex ed, and request exactly what is being taught to their children, especially in middle school and high school.”
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